Prevention saves lives – but it’s often stated that preventing disease can save money. It’s intuitive – a mammogram costs far less than treatment of metastatic breast cancer, and a statin medication costs far less than bypass surgery or a stroke.

However, there are historically few medical interventions that are cost saving. Childhood vaccinations save more money than they cost. Preventing medical errors can certainly improve care and lower cost, although this is an internal quality improvement as opposed to a new medical procedure.

But most prevention efforts can improve health care quality and lengthen life – but often at a considerable cost.

Researchers in this month’s Health Affairs reanalyze earlier research on cost-effectiveness, substituting current generic prices for the brand name prices used in past years when there were fewer effective generic medications available.

The good news – the cost per quality adjusted life year in this new analysis goes down between 58% and 98%. Although the title of the article implies cost-saving, there are no “negative” costs for Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs); a QALY can be purchased in some instances for as little $1022.

Further good news is that there are a number of “blockbuster” drugs going generic in the next few years.